Colonial - Historic Buildings of Connecticut

Lathrop Manor (1745)

The seventeenth century home of Dr. John Olmstead, Norwich’s first physician, was located at the current site of Lathrop Manor, on Washington Street in Norwichtown. He later sold his house, built around 1660, to Samuel Lathrop (1650-1732). It was then inherited by Samuel’s son, Thomas Lathrop (1681-1774). It is possible the original house burned in 1745 and was rebuilt. In any case, after Samuel’s death, it was owned by Dr. Daniel Lathrop, who joined with Dr. Joshua Lathrop (whose home is across the street) to establish Connecticut’s first apothecary, at that time the only one located between New York and Boston. Benedict Arnold lived in the house as a young man while he was apprenticed to the Lathrops, who were merchants in addition to running an apothecary. Dr. Daniel Lathrop married Jerusha, the daughter of Governor Joseph Talcott. The property was famed for its gardens and Lydia Huntly Sigourney, who later became a popular poet and author, lived in the house as a child while her father was working as a gardener for the Lathrops. Sigourney recorded her memories of the house and garden in her books, Sketch of Connecticut, Forty Years Since (1824) and Letters of Life (1866). After Mrs. Jerusha Lathrop died in 1806, the house was owned by another Daniel Lathrop, the son of Dr. Joshua Lathrop. An important resident in the later nineteenth century was Daniel Coit Gilman, an influential educator who taught at Yale and became the first president of Johns Hopkins University. A Lathrop descendant, Gilman delivered A Historical Discourse at Norwich’s Bicentennial Celebration in 1859. Today the house is a bed & breakfast called Lathop Manor.

The Elnathan Camp House (1758)

One of Durham’s most impressive eighteenth century buildings is the Elnathan Camp House, located at the northeast corner of the intersection of Main Street and Maiden Lane. Early in the eighteenth century, Abraham Jelit built a house on the property which was later owned by John Camp, who probaly built the current house around 1758 to replace the smaller Jelit House. Camp gave the house to his son, Phineas, in 1785 and Phineas Camp immediately sold the house to his brother, Elnathan. The house was used as a residence and shop by Elnathan Camp and later owners, with a tavern on the premises in the later nineteenth century. The house continues as a residence and offices today.

Marlborough Congregational Church Parsonage (1750)

The parsonage of the Congregational Church of Marlborough is a vernacular 1 3/4 story house, built around 1750 and later given a Greek Revival style frieze and cornice over the front door. The house was originally the parsonage of the Methodist Church, but when the church building was converted to become a library and town hall in the 1920s, the parsonage was sold to the Congregational Church.

The Griswold Inn (1776)

The Griswold Inn is the most famous landmark building in Essex. A sign at the Inn states that the Griswold House was built by Sala Griswold in 1776. It originally stood near the shipyard and was moved to its current location on Main Street to become part of the house constructed by Richard Hayden in 1801. Hayden’s house was the first three-story building in the lower Connecticut River Valley. Around the same time, Richard’s two brothers, John G. and Amasa Hayden, built houses on either side (they are now part of the Griswold Inn complex, the Amasa Hayden House being the Inn’s annex). Hayden sold his house to Ethan Bushnell in 1806, moving to a new brick house nearby. Ethan Bushnell turned his home into a tavern. A former schoolhouse on the property, built in 1738, was attached to the house, possibly to serve as a kitchen (it is now the taproom). The Tavern was inherited by Bushnell’s children in 1849 and passed through a variety of owners over the years, probably acquiring the name Griswold House during the period it was owned by Emory Morse of Wallingford in the 1870s and 1880s. The Griswold Inn continues in business today. See Below for more images. (more…)

Elias Austin House (1743)

The Elias Austin House, also known as the Moses Austin House, was built around 1745 and stands on the west side of Main Street in Durham. Elias Austin purchased the lot in 1743 and the property passed to his wife and sons when he died in 1766. One of his sons was Moses Austin, who was born in the house in 1761. Moses Austin later left Durham and reached Texas in the 1820, where the government of Spanish-controlled Mexico granted him land to settle 300 Anglo-American families. Austin died in 1821, but his son, Stephen F. Austin, fulfilled his father’s dream, becoming known as the “Father of Texas.” The Austin House in Durham was sold out of the family in 1783 and has since had many different owners. The building served as Durham’s post office from 1909 to 1935. A front porch supported by pillars once wrapped around three sides of the house, but was removed sometime in the last two decades.

The Curtis Fairchild House (1741)

The former Spelman Hotel stands at the intersection of Main Street and Wallingford Road (formerly called Quarry Hill Road) in Durham. It was built as a house around 1740 (a sign on the house says 1741) by Curtis Fairchild, and sold just a few years later to John Jones. It was inherited by John Jones, Jr., who by 1767 was in serious debt and fled his creditors. The house ended up in the hands of Phineas Spelman, who turned it into an inn at the urging of the town. Spelman was reluctant to do so, because it was during the Revolutionary War and inflation had made currency almost worthless. He died in 1783 and his widow continued to operate the Spelnman Hotel, but it was finally closed by the town in 1793. The town was unwilling to license Elizabeth Spelman because there were now several taverns in Durham and town officials feared the effect on citizens’ morals. The house was owned in the nineteenth century by Daniel Bates and then by Parsons Coe, who altered it in the Greek Revival style, replacing the original gambrel roof with a gable roof. A front porch with six square columns was also added and the house was attached to an adjacent house. The Coe family owned the house until 1898 and the Harvey family from 1902 to 1954, when it became the property of Durham’s First Congregational Church. The house has recently been brought back to its eighteenth century appearance, again freestanding and with the removal of the porch and the addition of a restored gambrel roof.

Trumbull-Carew House (1763)

The Trumbull-Carew House (pdf), at 44 East Town Street in Norwich, was built in 1763 by Joseph Carew. Capt. Carew sold the house to Col. Joseph Trumbull in 1778 and later enlarged the Simon Huntington House nearby as his new residence. Col. Trumbull was the son of Gov. Jonathan Trumbull and was appointed as the first commissary general of the Continental Army in 1777 during the Revolutionary War. Illness forced him to resign his duties the following year and he died at his father’s home in Lebanon, having only recently purchased the house in Norwich. The house has had many owners over the years and has recently been for sale.